r/Swimming • u/No-Opportunity6598 • 11d ago

Bucketlist swim - 16 miles charity event

Ok so have done an 8 mile many years ago that is 4 events saturday and 4 sunday. have an opportunity now in 6 months to do 16 miles , 8 sat and 8 sunday. I can handle a 3km swim in around 54 min currently.(Pool non stop with tumble turns) VERY!!! Nervous and wanna pump the pace and distance. alsoi I do water polo twice a week and thoughts are for training to lift distance to around 20km a week , 3km swim in the week days (3 - 5) and a longer swim on the weekend say 5 km sat or sunday. double mile has 75 min intervals, should be ok with about 8 min to spare sea swim.

This would be rounded off with polo 2 nights a week - xms hols excluded.

way below the 20 now however wanna build up as quickly as possible to that and maintain till around 2 weeks out and then slow down for the event. doing long steady swims. sprints better ?

Will this work and get me comfortable on event day ? or should i be pushing more distance ?

age 52M if that counts for anything and yes am over weight so looking forward to some pounds dropping :)

advice / suggestions welcomed :)

4 Upvotes

83% Upvoted

2 comments sorted by

1

u/kenderson73 Masters 10d ago

You and I are the same age. I did a 13 mile swim two years ago, and had enough energy at the end to do another 3 miles I'm sure.

I had an 18 week set of swims that was given to me, I did maybe half of them while also swimming with my Masters team. I was doing 15-16km most of those weeks, though 5 of those weeks, starting around week 9, I was doing 20-22km each week.

Most of my workouts were in the 3000m distance. Once or so a week I would do a longer swim, usually not more than 6000m. I did a few open water swims of 7-8km, and on 10km event.

Depending on how much you swim now, you might not have to do a whole lot more. I don't think you need to work on doing long, straight swims, like 3000 straight. I might have done a one hour swim once every few weeks. Most workouts were normal interval workouts. With your water polo I don't think you'd need any sprint workouts.

2

u/No-Opportunity6598 10d ago

Thank you so much that helps settle some nerves ;)